Yet Another Space Weapons Treaty
On 10 June 2014, the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation presented in the United Nations Conference on Disarmament (CD) a draft Treaty on Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and of the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects (PPWT), an update of the draft treaty proposed by Russia and China in 2008. As of this writing, the text of the draft treaty has not been posted to the CD website. The reportage suggests that China and Russia have merely tinkered around the edges of their 2008 proposal. If so, the new draft will be as unacceptable to the US as was their 2008 draft.
Weapon Types: What to Include and to Exclude
The term “space weapon” has always been difficult to define precisely; however there are three broad categories:
1. Earth-based anti-satellite weapons
2. Space-based anti-satellite weapons
3. Space-based force projection weapons
Categories 1 and 2 are of universal concern because the orbiting debris caused by the testing and use of such weapons degrades the environment of Earth orbit, increasing the hazard to the peaceful use of outer space. This is not an issue with Category 3 weapons. The primary concern with regard to Category 3 weapons is one of state interests, specifically the vulnerability of sovereign airspace from outer space. It should also be considered that force projection weapons could either deter or retaliate against Earth-based anti-satellite (ASAT) attacks by non-party states, and might be a means of collective self-defense for the states parties. Since the issues with regard to Category 3 weapons are clearly different from those of Category 1 and Category 2 weapons, they are best addressed in a separate treaty. Thus the immediate problem to be addressed in international law is the prohibition of ASATs rather than prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS).
A fatal flaw of all ASAT treaties proposed to date is that they address Category 2 weapons while being entirely silent on Category 1 weapons. Such proposals are prejudicial to the interests of the United States, not simply because presumably it enjoys an advantage in ASAT technology, but much more importantly, because the US is the biggest user of space-based systems; thus Earth-based (land, sea, and air) threats to space-based infrastructure is of vital concern to the US. Any draft ASAT treaty that fails to address Earth-based threats to space-based assets will be eternally unacceptable to the US.
ASAT’s Linkage to Strategic Arms Control
On 11 January 2007, a Chinese medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) armed with a direct-ascent kinetic kill vehicle (KKV) destroyed a defunct PRC weather satellite, the Fengyun-1C (FY-1C)
The Scud-C, sold by North Korea to Syria and other states, has a horizontal range of 600 km with a 700-kg payload; fired vertically, a Scud-C could reach 300 km.
Since intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) could be used to launch ASATs, an ASAT treaty must be tied to a strategic arms inspection regime similar to the 2010 Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START). New START does not include IRBMs and MRBMs, since the USA and the USSR decommissioned these pursuant to the 1987 Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles; however, other states such as China possess them. Although strategic offensive arms need not be restricted or eliminated in an ASAT treaty, as potential ASAT launchers they need to be accounted for and to be inspected.
ASAT Test Ban
The US position is that past draft ASAT treaties have been unverifiable. Although deployment may be difficult to detect, ASAT tests are detectable, especially if they are successful. But, an untested weapon has doubtful military utility, thus the illegal deployment of an untested weapon is unlikely. Even so, the historical evidence is that an anti-satellite weapon system is less of a technical challenge than a missile defense system, given that the US tested an anti-satellite system in the mid 1980s, but three decades later it is deploying only a limited non-nuclear missile defense system. In principle, the position of a satellite in orbit at any given moment is as predictable as that of a stationary object in that in Newtonian terms they are both “at rest,“ and for a satellite that has remained in its orbit for days or even months without maneuvering, its “rest state” is well characterized. In contrast, from the moment of detection to projected moment of impact is only a matter of minutes for a ballistic missile’s reentry vehicle, and in those minutes a defense system much characterize the flight path, continuously update it as the reentry vehicle maneuvers, and discriminate between the real target and decoys. Thus it would appear that any anti-missile defense (AMD) system inherently will have an anti-satellite capability, even if one limited to low Earth orbit. Aside from banning AMD system testing in an ASAT mode, what other measures can be taken to verify compliance?
Burnout Velocity Limitation
Prohibition of AMD interceptors with burnout velocities greater than 3.5 km/sec would limit the ASAT capability of an AMD system to 600 km orbits. The current Aegis SM-3 Block 1 interceptor is within such a restriction. There are plans to increase the Aegis burnout velocity to 4.5-5.5 km/sec to give it a longer reach for midcourse interceptions and thereby expand its geographic basing options, but it would also give the system higher reach against satellites, from 1,450 km to 2,350 km. Both terminal and midcourse defense systems must overcome decoys, but terminal systems must also overcome maneuverable RVs that are in development. The investment to date in AMDs, and the normative argument of defeating offensive missiles, makes the AMD threat to low Earth orbit a fait accompli that would be very difficult to roll back, however, there are arguments in favor of a burnout velocity restriction. The arguments for higher burnout velocities are weakened if there is a ban on multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), maneuverable RVs, and decoys. (Russo-American treaties have progressively restricted MIRVs, while maneuverable RVs and decoys are probably verifiable under the New START inspection regime although the treaty does not restrict them.) Assuming that major nuclear weapons states join an expanded regime based on New START, AMD systems would need only to be sized against a strike from a state outside the regime possessing little offensive capability.
Verification
A test verification regime similar to New START could verify compliance with a 3.5 km/sec restriction. Additionally, an ASAT treaty should expand on the aerial and on-site inspection regimes that are already in place between the Russian Federation and the United States pursuant to the Open Skies Treaty and New START
Strategic Chains
An ASAT treaty that effectively addresses Earth-based threats, while not limiting strategic arms, requires an information-sharing and inspection regime that is conducive to such future agreements and could solve a chain of security problems involving nuclear weapons in which bilateral agreements are unlikely due to issues regarding third parties. A Pakistan-India strategic arms reduction treaty (START) is inhibited because India must size its nuclear forces to deter China; in turn, an India-China START is inhibited because China must size its nuclear forces to deter Russia and the US. Further Russia-US STARTs are constrained by the need to deter China. The transparency and confidence-building measures of an ASAT treaty might be a path to a multilateral START.
Notifications and Telemetric Data on AMD Tests
Earth-based ASATs are difficult to distinguish from AMDs, thus it is difficult to construct a regime in which ABMs are legal and ASATs are illegal. This is not to say that separation is impossible. Exchanging telemetric information pursuant to New START Article 9 may be a solution. Parties could be required to issue notification prior to test launch of a strategic missile or a missile defense system and to provide telemetric data. Would telemetry provide clues to ASAT capability? What are the technology transfer concerns regarding providing telemetry? Are such concerns outweighed by the advantages of an ASAT treaty?
Peace Games
The repeated failure of draft treaties, offered by the USSR alone, then by Russia and China jointly, to tackle Category 1 weapons suggests a dogged diplomatic strategy. Such proposals have not been serious arms control efforts, but rather have been calculated to portray the US’s 30-year opposition to such proposals in the worse possible light on the international political stage. The message conveyed is that Russia and China want what the most of the world wants -- peace in outer space -- whereas the US does not. Unfortunately, US policy has inept enough to play into this strategy. It suffers a diplomatic black eye every time it just says "No!" in defiance of 150 other members of the United Nations. A better strategy would be to for the US to counter with a proposal of its own, one that addresses its legitimate concerns.
Template for a Comprehensive and Verifiable ASAT Treaty
The 2008 PPWT presented by Russia and China was only five pages, and it cannot be expected that the 2014 version is a great deal longer. In contrast, New START, a treaty between only the Russian Federation and the United States, and addressing only the reduction of strategic offensive weapons, runs 17 pages in length, and also includes a 165-page protocol which for the most part a blank template for inputting information required by the treaty. In light of this, it can be seen that the PPWT is not even a useful beginning effort.
OPS-Alaska’s draft Treaty on the Prohibition of the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects and its mandatory protocol are the first serious attempt to address the legitimate outer space security concerns of the United States. The draft is written as a treaty between the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, and the United States, taking much of its structure from New START. Given that a meaningful ASAT treaty must address Earth-based threats to satellites, including classes of missiles that the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate before the end of the Cold War but which China continues to deploy, and given the need to specify an inspection and verification regime to distinguish between permitted AMD systems and prohibited ASAT systems, one can understand that such a treaty would be considerably more complex than New START. It should come as little surprise then that the draft ASAT treaty presented here is somewhat longer than New START, and that its protocol, which like the New START protocol is largely a blank template for entering required information, runs 350 pages. Expanding the draft treaty to include other countries possessing the capability to develop anti-satellite weapons would increase its length considerably.
Projections regarding the necessary length of a multilateral ASAT treaty do not to suggest that concluding and ASAT treaty is impossible, only that the difficulty of the task has been significantly underestimated. It should be observed, however, that although Russia and the United States have nearly fifty years’ experience in negotiating and managing the implementation of the difficult details of strategic arms control agreements and have also agreed to both aerial and on-site inspection, China has no such history; the openness that would be required of China in concluding and abiding by a meaningful ASAT treaty is entirely outside its experience.
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